It's crazy how when comparing the resolution and resolving power of the microscope to other scanning methods, there's no comparison when you look at the sheer resolution and resolving power of the microscope.
It's hilarious that this is one of your most sensible/understandable projects. The definition of being so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn't stop to think if you should.
Edges are not in focus because microscope lenses you have are not "flat". They are designed to only show sharp image in the center and have severe field curvature. When looking by eyes - they refocus and you can still see everything. But for microphotography more expensive flat-corrected lenses are needed (they often have "Plan" somewhere in their name).
To be pedantic, photomicrography is a picture taken through a microscope, microphotography is taking a very small photograph (small end image, normal subject)
Well yes but more importantly you need a condenser with proper Köhler illumination. And you need to know how to properly mount your film flat and clean.
@@danielalexandre4008 Köhler illumination is overrated in my experience. If you use simple matte diffuser like here - you loose a bit of contrast, but not resolution (as you illuminate much wider cone of light than needed).
Compared to the microscope scan there is no comparison when you look at the sheer resolution or resolving power. Compared to the microscope scan there is no comparison when you look at the sheer resolution or resolving power. Compared to the microscope scan there is no comparison when you look at the sheer resolution or resolving power. I love you
On top of being a top tier meme video this is the best demonstration of what you can get with the most common scanning methods so you accidentally taught me something
Microscopist here. Microscope objectives only produce a flat field of focus in the centre of the field of view. And that's for really good objectives from Leica, Mitutoyo, Nikon, Olympus, or Zeiss. The sensor on your DSLR is going to be much larger than that region as it isn't designed to work with a microscope and microscopes aren't designed to work with DSLRs. Due to vignetting on both the imaging and illumination legs of your microscope the brightness of the image will not be constant across the field of view. We generally correct this by taking a picture of a blank region of slide and using this to correct the unevenness.
1:44 What you are seeing is classic flat-field distortion. Your objectives are not plan-corrected. Cheaper objective lens that are not marked Plan will exhibit these distortions that you see in the outer edges. I have an image of an entire mouse brain sample that was taken using multiple images taken with the 20x lens. Even for a sample that is like 10mm by 5mm it took 230 images and would be something I absolutely wouldn't have bothered to do if it weren't for the fact that the microscope had a fully motorised stage. Even so it took over half an hour to complete.
Interesting. Like I mentioned, microscopes are so beyond my wheelhouse I'm just happy to get a result. Now I do want to refine it, and it seems like I have to look into getting better objectives. Thanks for the info.
I actually believe that with the right lenses and processing power this could be an incredible tool for scanning and preserving films. I'm one of those nut jobs that's looking for efficient DIY motion picture film options and while this is insanely impractical I think you could find a software solution to some of the problems you mentioned. The idea of having a direct film scan in that kind of quality makes me giddy and I want to believe.
wow cool that someone try to do this. because i am always was wondering. basically it is the same like drum scanner. for stitching you can use PTGui. it can automatically crop unsharp areas, calculate vignetting, geometric distortion, equalize brightness between shots.
I actually did this too at work one time, with both bw negs and color slides, just I didn't scan the whole image. Those unfocused parts of the digital image are probably because of the objective of the microscope not being a real planar obj. If you're interested I can share some grain pics taken with our rig.
I love everything about this. For scanning, I've always been torn between using my dad's flatbed scanner and shooting negatives with a macro lens, but now I want to try all the other options.
And with this you've made one of the most in-depth videos involving using microscopy for assessing film resolution or just scanning in general. I was pleasantly surprised to see this come up in my subs as when I've searched before I don't find people pointing microscopes at their film almost at all on youtube. Only time is when it's some video on how it works for a simple demonstration of "look at the silver!" I second the guy that said Minox, but there's a lot more you can do. 16mm and 8mm film, which might not have as high quality because it's constantly moving and uses lower shutter speeds. Still could be fun. B&W will always be better because color dyes always end up being larger. Microfilms like Adox CMS II, Fuji HR-21 (unperfed sadly), and even that Rollei stock that you can still get SPUR is another option (and developer) but I think it uses the same emulsion as Rollei's stock. Another thing is you can try using ultra-fine dry plates in a camera and try scanning those lol
I have a similar scanner. I 3dprinted film holders for the 4x5 inch and 10x15cm inch negatives. To get them in focus, the film needs to be 2mm away from the glass.
This is really interesting. If a person wanted maximum resolution for an image - using something like Adox 20 ISO film, and then set up a little arduino system and stepping motors to move the stage around programatically, with consistent lighting and manual exposure. Using only the sharp centre of the field. It'd be interesting to see the maximum resolving power you could get from the 35mm frame using a modern lens at an optimum aperture with a camera with a mirror lock-up feature and a release on a heavy tripod.
Pretty good budget entry level film scanning option. However, the Fujifilm GFX produces much higher resolution and resolving power resulting in crisper scans.
Whenever I see anything from early digital cameras I do really wonder how film ever got replaced haha. I have a couple old Microscope mount Olympus bodies (C35AD I think?) that are more or less an OM1 with no winder/prism/viewfinder etc but has a Nikon style blade shutter built into the mount. If you want one of those for whatever reason and don't mind paying shipping from New Zealand I'll happily send one over!
I love your videos so much, I don't study photography anymore but when I did me and my mate would talk about your videos and dumb photography ideas and stuff, I have no one to talk to about it anymore but I still get to enjoy your videos!
What you have there is possibly the optimal tool for scanning Minox negatives. The 8x11 mm image area would only require a few dozen cropped frames, but would easily outperform almost any other method of getting a digital image from such a small frame. BTW, if you find one cheap, you might try the same thing with a lower power objective -- or even with a wide field microscope (they're typically 20x with the eyepieces -- and yes, most of them are stereo). A common 20x should come close to getting a whole Minox or perhaps even 110 frame in a single image (possibly a better chance if you use direct eyepiece projection or even prime focus -- that is, remove both the eyepiece and camera lens and let the microscope objective directly focus the image onto the camera sensor). You might even try that with your existing microscope, with the low power objective and a simple eyepiece tube (you should be able to find those in T mount which then adapts to almost any commercial lens mount). There are also inexpensive mounts that can let your smart phone look into the eyepiece, and the one in this house does a fine job of capturing detail not much larger than that film grain (individual cell structure of corals, from our experience).
It would be great to see some further experiments with this. Maybe with some Adox CMS 20 II with a f/1.4 lens? Or color film? I hear Velvia 50 had extremely high resolution.
Oh I'd love to see you attempt to scan some APS with the microscope, since APS so rarely gets some decent scans. Of course compared to 35mm there's no comparison when looking at the resolution and the resolving power.
I started looking at this for scanning minolta 16 negatives, which is a more realistic use case without automation. I was using an adapter without optics and I got slightly better results than this, but I came to the conclusion that I really needed a 2x planar lens, and the cost of that basically made the project a lot less appealing. Right now I'm using a bellows with a reversed enlarger lens on a 5d3 for that task - less resolution, but I can still get to grain level so I don't see much point in taking it further.
Next logical step would be to spend several weeks attaching stepper motors to the microscopes stage and automate the moving and photographing of the negative. Then somehow automate the stitching of the mosaic, make this your new default way of digitizing negatives and spend thousands on new hard drives because a single roll of film would now need 100+ GB.
You are awesome! Just needed to share that. Also, if you want to start shooting 110, I've gotten the best results shooting Lomography Orca at places like wild west museums and steam train museums. The images are so crusty, they look like they were taken in the 1800's.
microscope optic are not that good in terms of corner image sharpness generally, since they ment for viewing with naked eye and not capturing entire field. Hence why usually there is a dedicated splitter for camera with different optical path. And on top of that microscope cameras are c mount? which crops all that imperfections out
Hey this is really cool, I think it could be possible to do the alignment/transformation automatically, so you don't have to move in perfect increments and could just move the film around while taking as many pictures as you can with the camera. This would also introduce some sampling which could reduce noise / improve sharpness? For example I found this github repo called "image align and average", generally astrophotography deals with this kind of stuff I think
I whold recommend to get an Arduino and some stepper motors and a relay and build a "thing" that pushes the film every so slightly and then the relay operates a cable that will release a the shutter on the Canon 5D. Second tip: try a small program called Hugin. I don't know if there is a windows or Mac version but I use it bin Linux just fine. It handles large "panoramic" shots just fine (Hugin did a flawless job on a ~50 shot RAW panorama in an old Celeron PC and faster, than PS did (actually it didn't, it messed up the image, next time...) with the same shot in a i7 mac.
Now you just have to rig up a couple stepper motors to move the X-Y axis to automate the process, and probably a well-regulated high CRI light to illuminate the film. Then the digital nerds will never be able to talk about megapixel count or resolving power again! I've had the same problem with my Epson though. I wish there was a better option for high-res medium and large format (without selling a kidney). I tried to order one of those BetterScanning holders that are adjustable with grub screws to tune the focus but I think he's out of business.
The process can be automatized using robotic micrometers (or rotary mounts), and python. Also, if you are worried about the poor depth of filed, it can be solved using a technique (that is available in PS [I guess]) known as Focus Stacking.
We have one of these in work as well as a high-grade medical scanner, I've always wondered what scanning film on it would look like! Maybe something to try
If you get 'plan' objectives you should get better results in the corners. Also I think most objectives are designed to be used with cover glass, so I wouldn't go above 4x objectives anyway.
You can find microscope adapters for all SLR mounts without glass elements. I have one for my Minolta mount. This said it would be interesting if you tels us why you undertook this experiment.
anyone got any tips for film flatness when scanning on a flatbed? i use the plastic film strip holders but i still get rounding and out of focus areas.... ive tried smooshing the film flat with a piece of glass but then the scanner doesnt close all the way and i get light leak issues
if you motorized the movement of the film and let it take the pictures automatically. This could actually work. And maybe doing the photomerge automatically in one go, if any software supports this many images.
I thought about it, but I don't have the skills or means to make it happen. Motorized microscope stages exist, but I also know that I probably can't afford them.
What about automatizing the process? it is not difficult to adapt a 3d printer mechanism to move the subject and an infra red command to trigger the camera. you can leave the thing scanning over night with the "see the microbes" lense and crop even more to the center
I also had the idea of using a microscope for film scanning, so i really enjoyed your video. Thanks for sharing it. p.s. the background music is irritating and strangely also used by other film photography youtube channels such as SprocketHoles and several others.
How about old Microfiche or old Micro Film. Like libraies story old news papers on them in the past. They were super small yet seemed to have lots of detail. How would that look under a microscope to scan?
I'd love to also see your comparison with the "Kodak" branded ~$100-$150 home slide scanners (since you kinda went down that path here anyway) -- like the "Slide N Scan" and the slightly older "Scanza" (which i think gives better results from what i've seen?)
It can be done. Next time come to our lab and you'll get access to a 16 bits scientific monochrome camera, a research microscope with a condenser and a plan apo lens, a motorized stage, software to pilot image acquisition and stich gigabytes of data, and last but not least training to properly do it all.
